


Warm Fuzzies

by bluebeholder



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Getting Together, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 02:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17357123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Eddie makes dinner. The symbiote is a lot more perceptive about feelings than Eddie can ever really hope to be.





	Warm Fuzzies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowy_Dumbo_Octopus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowy_Dumbo_Octopus/gifts).



> 1\. I am sick and can barely see in a straight line, so I’m _praying_ this unbeta’d fic makes even the remotest sense.
> 
> 2\. I know fuck-all about Venom except that I saw the movie one (1) time. 
> 
> 3\. Regardless of everything else, some guy named Cates is making my friend sad, so here I am bearing gifts of fic. I hope this makes you feel better. <3 <3 <3

It’s a little odd, Eddie reflects, to spend a day leaning how to walk again.

“You can walk just fine in your own form,” Eddie points out, lurching violently to the left.

**Our form, Eddie, it is yours too**.

“Well, it hasn’t got the face I’ve seen in the mirror my whole life, so I’m having an adjustment to make,” Eddie protests mildly. Now they’re lurching…even further to the left. “Careful, or you’ll fall.”

The symbiote makes a disgusted sound. **We will not fall.**

“Uh-huh,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes.

It takes about thirty seconds for them to trip and topple ass over teakettle over the back of the couch and into an undignified pile on the floor behind.

**The center of balance on your loser body should not be that bad** , the symbiote grouses.

Eddie raises an eyebrow, heaving them up off the floor. The symbiote, clearly frustrated, has let go of the reins for now. “Oh, so it’s _my_ body now? What happened to it being _our_ form?”

**Well, you don’t like calling our other form a shared form because you’re afraid of having _teeth_ , I think it is only fair that I dislike calling this form a shared form because you have no balance.**

For a moment, Eddie digests that. Then he laughs. “Are you throwing a temper tantrum?”

The symbiote is silent, but grouchiness radiates through their mind.

“Hey, hey,” Eddie says, sitting down on the couch, “there’s nothing wrong with it. You’ve seen me trip and miss the floor before.”

**We are lucky that our nose did not break** , the symbiote grumbles. Despite the tone, Eddie can feel that they’ve been placated.

He leans back on the couch, acutely aware of the sensations of this shared body. The comfortable stretch of their legs, the way their shoulders sink into the couch crease where they always sit, the sudden relaxation of their spine. “What I want to know is why you could drive a motorcycle through a whole new body but can’t walk in a straight line.”

**Adrenaline is a hell of a drug** , the symbiote says, suddenly cheerful. **Would you like to ride a motorcycle again together?**

“Thanks, I’ll pass,” Eddie says. He shakes their head, gazing out the window and considering exactly how terrifying a motorcycle ride with the symbiote at the reins would be. Invulnerable or not, crashing a motorcycle would still _suck_. “How about we stay in and have a nice dinner instead?”

**Pussy** , the symbiote says affectionately. **What are we having?**

Although the symbiote is more than happy to eat just about anything Eddie wants, they’ve found that it’s a good idea to have at least one meal a day focused on the symbiote’s chemical needs. It needs phenethylamine (a word which Eddie can’t pronounce for shit) to survive, hence its brain obsession; Eddie really prefers not to eat human brains daily.

The compromise is literally tater tots and chocolate.

Well, not just tater tots and chocolate. Although those have plenty of phenethylamine, Eddie really isn’t a huge fan of eating exactly two foods (plus brains) every day. He’s done some research, which is one of very few things he’s good at, and uncovered some other things that he can eat which won’t completely horrify him.

While there’s nothing wrong with a rare steak, something in Eddie just cringes at the thought of eating a sirloin completely _raw_. The symbiote laughs, but it certainly isn’t complaining about near-perfectly-cooked medium-rare steaks every night. The temperature threshold at which phenethylamine starts to degrade is roughly 140 degrees Fahrenheit; conveniently, that’s the temperature threshold at which you pull a medium-rare steak off the heat.

The end result of this research was Eddie wandering around a store looking like a slightly deranged middle-aged woman obsessed with cookware, buying a cast-iron skillet and a quick-response meat thermometer. The symbiote laughed at him the entire time, but the first bite of steak shut them up pretty quick.

It’s a pretty quick turnaround on dinner. A one-and-a-quarter-inch-thick sirloin takes about eight minutes on a side to get to the appropriate temperature; if he throws half a bag of frozen French fries in the oven about ten minutes before the steak goes on the skillet, that gives the skillet time to get hot and for him to prep the steak.

**Truly, you are the world’s greatest chef** , the symbiote teases affectionately as Eddie gets going on dinner. **Gordon Ramsey should tremble!**

“Thanks,” Eddie says, pausing in the act of rubbing salt into the steak. He smiles. “Want to try fajitas this weekend?”

**Fajitas?**

Eddie nods. “Yeah, still steak, just cooked a little differently. Spicy.”

The symbiote pauses. **Have we eaten spicy food before?**

“Nope,” Eddie says, popping the 'p' and smiling. “But you’re gonna.”

Amazing, how they’ve only been sharing a body for a month, and yet it feels like forever. It’s not that Eddie can’t remember a time that there wasn’t somebody else in his head. He just prefers not to remember it. It was lonely.

Now…well, now he’s got a symbiote sharing a body with him, addicted to cooking shows and insistent on eating chocolate cake at the most inconvenient times, who also helps fend off muggers and periodically munch on murderers, uses its power break into restricted areas just so Eddie can take blurry pictures of whatever illegal nonsense the latest corporation is up to, and every single night keeps Eddie company in his head.

It gives Eddie the warm fuzzies.

They eat dinner watching an episode of the Great British Bakeoff. The symbiote has roughly endless comments on everything and perpetually disagrees with Eddie on his comments. It all culminates in an epic sulk when Eddie successfully predicts Star Baker for the episode, placated only by being allowed to take physical body, sit next to Eddie, and personally devour an entire carton of chocolate ice cream.

Afterwards, they sit in silence for a bit. Somewhere, sirens wail; upstairs, some kid up past their bedtime goes running down the hall. Eddie ignores them in favor of the rather large presence on the couch with him. Even now, they’re connected. Of course the symbiote is there, taller and broader than Eddie, but Eddie can still feel the shared sensation. The way the couch sags for both of them. The lingering taste of fries in Eddie’s mouth and chocolate in the symbiote’s.

And the sense, still, that someone else is _there_. That the anxieties and fears in Eddie’s head are pushed away by something much bigger and stronger. That loneliness is just not even a thing for either of them anymore. It’s a whole ’nother basket of warm fuzzies and Eddie feels a little bit like he’s been assaulted by Tribbles at this point.

But, for the first time in what feels like a very long time, Eddie is happy.

He’s happy to be here, on this couch in a dark apartment, with a symbiote who feels less like a criminal sidekick or a parasitic alien and more like…

**You know,** the symbiote says suddenly, looking at Eddie, **we do not only get phenethylamine from the food we eat**.

“You don’t?” Eddie asks, oddly off-balance.

The symbiote takes Eddie’s hand. Its hand is big, and ripples a little weirdly, but it’s warm and comfortable and fits Eddie’s just about perfectly. **We get it when you worry about finding foods that will be good for us or spend more than you can afford to make us comfortable.**

Eddie swallows hard. “Um…”

**We get it when you smile at us.**

“Oh,” Eddie says.

The symbiote cocks its head. **When you get “the warm fuzzies.”**

“Right,” Eddie says.

**Do you see, Eddie?**

Eddie nods slowly, looking at their hands. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

More like a _partner._

The symbiote smiles, all big sharp teeth, and the visible delight pulls an answering smile out of Eddie. **A romantic partner.**

Eddie shakes his head. “I’m gonna have to get used to that.”

**We are used to it**.

“Of course you are.”

**We will help you get used to it too, Eddie.**

“You know,” Eddie says, turning to look up at the symbiote and feeling even more warm fuzzies piling up inside him, “I don’t think that’s going to take long at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> DID I DO THE RESEARCH? YOU BET YOUR ASS I DID.
> 
> Wiley Online provides a paper which gives breakdown of degradation of amino acids during various types of cooking. As far as I can tell, based on this paper (and admittedly I am no expert in chemistry), Eddie’s method of cooking a rare to medium-rare steak would provide a minimal breakdown of phenethylamine, rendering it perhaps the sanest way to eat that sweet, sweet love chemical. Read it here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.12243
> 
> 140˚ Fahrenheit is about 60˚ Celsius.


End file.
